In the aftermath of the Gujarat communal violence in 2002, there was a clamour from intellectuals, academics, social activists and many civic groups for a separate law to deal with communal violence. The result of a sustained campaign is the proposed ‘Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011’
BJP leader Arun Jaitley argues that it is a dangerous and discriminatory bill which presumes that the majority community is always to blame for communal violence
A draft of a proposed legislation titled “Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011” has been put in public domain. The draft bill ostensibly appears to be a part of an endeavour to prevent and punish communal violence in the country.
Though that may be the ostensible object of the proposed law its real object is to the contrary. It is a bill which if it is ever enacted as a law will intrude into the domain of the state, damage a federal polity of India [ Images ] and create an imbalance in the inter-community relationship of India.
What does the bill in effect state
The most vital definition of the bill is of the expression ‘group’. A ‘group’ means a religious or linguistic minority and in a given state may include the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The bill creates a whole set of new offences in Chapter II. Clause 6 clarifies that the offences under this bill are in addition to the offences under the SC & ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Can a person be punished twice for the same offence?
Clause 7 prescribes that a person is said to commit sexual assault if he or she commits any of the sexual act against a person belonging to a ‘group’ by virtue of that person’s membership of a group. Clause 8 prescribes that ‘hate propaganda’ is an offence when a person by words oral or written or a visible representation causes hate against a ‘group’ or a person belonging to a ‘group’.
Clause 9 creates an offence for communal and targeted violence. Any person who singly or jointly or acting under the influence of an association engages in unlawful activity directed against a ‘group’ is guilty of organised communal and targeted violence.
Clause 10 provides for punishment of a person who expends or supplies money in the furtherance or support of an offence against a ‘group’. The offence of torture is made out under clause 12 where a public servant inflicts pain or a suffering, mental or physical, on a person belonging to a ‘group’.
Clause 13 punishes a public servant for dereliction of duty in relation to offences mentioned in this bill. Clause 14 punishes public servants who control the armed forces or security forces and fails to exercise control over people in his command in order to discharge their duty effectively.
Clause 15 expands the principle of vicarious liability. An offence is deemed to be committed by a senior person or office bearer of an association and he fails to exercise control over subordinates under his control or supervision. He is vicariously liable for an offence which is committed by some other person. Clause 16 renders orders of superiors as no defence for an alleged offence committed under this section.
Any communal trouble during which offences are committed is a law and order problem. Dealing with the law and order is squarely within the domain of the state governments. In the division of powers between the Centre and the states, the central government has no direct authority to deal with the law and order issues; nor is it directly empowered to deal with them nor it can legislate on the subject. The central government’s jurisdiction restricts itself to issue advisories, directions and eventually forming an opinion under Article 356 that the governance of the state can be carried on in accordance with the Constitution or not.
If the proposed bill becomes a law, then effectively it is the central government which would have usurped the jurisdiction of the states and legislated on a subject squarely within the domain of the states.
India has been gradually moving towards a more amicable inter-community relationship. Even when minor communal or caste disturbances occur, there is a national mood of revulsion against them. The governments, media, the courts among other institutions rise to perform their duty. The perpetrators of communal trouble should certainly be punished.
This draft bill however proceeds on a presumption that communal trouble is created only by members of the majority community and never by a member of the minority community. Thus, offences committed by members of the majority community against members of the minority community are punishable. Identical offences committed by minority groups against the majority are not deemed to be offences at all.
Thus a sexual assault is punishable under this bill and only if committed against a person belonging to a minority ‘group’. A member of a majority community in a state does not fall within the purview of a ‘group’. A ‘hate propaganda’ is an offence against minority community and not otherwise. Organised and targeted violence, hate propaganda, financial help to such persons who commit an offence, torture or dereliction of duty by public servants are all offences only if committed against a member of the minority community and not otherwise.
No member of the majority community can ever be a victim. This draft law thus proceeds on an assumption which re-defines the offences in a highly discriminatory manner. No member of the minority community are to be punished under this act for having committed the offence against the majority community.
It is only a member of the majority community who is prone to commit such offences and therefore the legislative intent of this law is that since only majority community members commit these offences, culpability and punishment should only be confined to them.
If implemented in a manner as provided by this bill, it opens up a huge scope for abuse. It can incentivise members of some communities to commit such offences encouraged by the fact that they would never be charged under the act.
Terrorist groups may no longer indulge in terrorist violence. They will be incentivised to create communal riots due to a statutory assumption that members of a jihadi group will not be punished under this law. The law makes only members of the majority community culpable. Why should the law discriminate on the basis of a religion or caste?
An offence is an offence irrespective of origin of the offender. Here is a proposed law being legislated in the 21st century where caste and religion of an offender wipe out the culpability under this law.
Who will ensure implementation of this act
The bill provides for a seven-member national authority for communal harmony, justice and reparations. Of these seven members at least four of them including the chairman and vice-chairman shall only belong to a ‘group’ (the minority community). A similar body is intended to be created in the states. Membership of this body thus shall be on religious and caste grounds. The offenders under this law are only the members of the majority community.
The enforcement of the act will be done by a body where statutorily the members of the majority community will be in a minority. The governments will have to make available police and other investigative agencies to this authority. This authority shall have a power to conduct investigations and enter buildings, conduct raids and searches to make inquiries into complaints and to initiate steps, record proceedings for prosecution and make its recommendations to the governments.
It shall have powers to deal with the armed forces. It has a power to send advisories to the central and state governments. Members of this authority shall be appointed in the case of central government by a collegium which shall comprise of prime minister, the home minister, and the leader of the opposition in the house of people and a leader of each recognised political party. A similar provision is created in relation to the states. Thus, it is the opposition at the Centre and the states which will have a majority say in the composition of the authority.
What are the procedures to be followed
The procedures to be followed for investigations under this act are extraordinary. No statement shall be recorded under section 161 of the CrPC. Victim statements shall be only under section 164 (before courts). The government will have a power to intercept and block messages and telecommunications under this law. Under clause 74 of the bill if an offence of hate propaganda is alleged against a person, a presumption of guilt shall exist unless the offender proves to the contrary. An allegation thus is equivalent to proof. Public servants under this bill under clause 67 are liable to be proceeded against without any sanction from the state.
The special public prosecutor to conduct proceedings under this act shall not act in aid of truth but ‘in the interest of the victim’. The name and identity of the victim complainant will not be disclosed. Progress of the case will be reported by the police to the victim complainant. The occurrence of organised communal and targeted violence under this act shall amount to an internal disturbance in a state within the meaning of Article 355 entitling the central government to impose President’s Rule.
The drafting of this bill appears to be a handiwork of those social entrepreneurs who have learnt from the Gujarat experience of how to fix senior leaders even when they are not liable for an offence.
Offences which are defined under the bill have been deliberately left vague. Communal and targeted violence means violence which destroys the ‘secular fabric of the nation’. There can be legitimate political differences as to what constitutes secularism. The phrase secularism can be construed differently by different persons. Which definition is the judge supposed to follow? Similarly, the creation of a hostile ‘environment’ may leave enough scope for a subjective decision as to what constitutes ‘a hostile environment’.
The inevitable consequences of such a law would be that in the event of any communal trouble the majority community would be assumed to be guilty. There would be a presumption of guilt unless otherwise proved. Only a member of the majority shall be held culpable under this law.
A member of the minority shall never commit an offence of hate propaganda or a communal violence. There is a virtual statutory declaration of innocence under this law for him.
The statutory authority prescribed at the central and state level would intrinsically suffer from an institutional bias because of its membership structure based on caste and community.
I have no doubt that once this law is implemented with the intention with which it is being drafted, it will create disharmony in the inter-community relations in India. It is a law fraught with dangerous consequences. It is bound to be misused. Perhaps, that appears to be the real purpose behind its drafting. It will encourage minority communalism. The law defies the basic principles of equality and fairness.
Social entrepreneurs in the National Advisory Council can be expected to draft such a dangerous and discriminatory law. One wonders how the political head of that body cleared this draft. When some persons carried on a campaign against the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act — an anti-terrorist law, the members of the UPA argued that even terrorists should be tried under the normal laws. A far more draconian law is now being proposed.
The states will be watching hopelessly when the Centre goes ahead with this misadventure. Their power is being usurped. The search for communal harmony is through fairness — not through reverse discrimination.
Arun Jaitley

25 May 2011
Tamil Nadu’s Hindus felt little or no sense of Hindu involvement in the just concluded Assembly elections; and this notwithstanding the fact that across the country the Abrahamic so-called minorities, as always, participated in the elections with full consciousness of their religious identity and their religious commitment to chip away at national self-identity until the goal is reached – to politically dis-empower Hindus and de-Hinduise the Hindu Nation.

Such is the comprehensive failure of the BJP and so total the loss of its self-identity, that reeling under the pressure of ascendant jihadi Islam and militant evangelical Church, hapless Hindus of Assam, because they had no faith in the BJP to protect Hindu interests, voted for Italian Christian Congress while the Hindus of Kerala with no faith again in the BJP to protect their interests, voted against Italian Christian Congress and for the communists.

The Hindus of Tamil Nadu, threatened in equal measure by both Islam and the Church and their progressive demographic, economic and religious aggression against them, however, voted for extraneous, non-Hindu considerations. Neither the Congress nor the communists, neither the DMK nor the AIADMK at anytime in history and in any state in the country served Hindus, Hindu interests or Hindu dharma; and yet all of them have been victors in elections driven only by the strength of the Hindu vote.

The BJP, wherever it succeeded, even without a Hindu agenda, and sometimes even after blatant pandering of Abrahamic minorities, rode to victory perched on RSS shoulders; it failed whenever the RSS refused to instruct its cadre to work actively for BJP victory. The RSS has still not decided, to the detriment of its own wellbeing and that of Hindus, if it wants to carry the dead weight of a characterless BJP on its shoulders.

Narendra Modi, although he does not fit into any of the above categories, like his good friend Jayalalithaa, is yet to learn that he is neither omnipotent nor infallible, and still has other lessons to learn.

The RSS is beginning to look increasingly like a failed Hindu organization without the capacity to create a political delivery mechanism with the unapologetic, unambiguous and uncompromising objective to serve Hindu interests. Unless the RSS wants to diminish itself to being simply another NGO working in the social sector, it has to make the conscious decision to influence the polity and empower Hindus to put in place a self-conscious Hindu government.

The Hindu Nation can be protected from anti-Hindu forces only by a Hindu State; and for the benefit of the unthinking among us let it be reiterated that a Hindu State is not to be equated with Abrahamic theocratic states. If empowerment does not lead to political power, it is no empowerment; and if the fast-track ascendancy of the Abrahamic minorities continues unchecked, then any measure of success that Hindus have achieved in any field can and will be dissipated to eventually favour only the Abrahamic minorities.

Let us be blunt – political power, unlike general social prosperity and well being, is a zero sum game. If the power to influence the polity today rests with Muslims and Christians it has come at the cost of Hindu political dis-empowerment; and Hindus and the RSS have only themselves to blame. Pon. Radhakrishnan, State President of the BJP in Tamil Nadu, according to some newspaper reports, pandered to the Christian sense of political power and influence when he sought the support of sundry padris in Nagercoil, his assembly constituency and a Christian bastion.

Needless to say again, while the collective idiot Hindu vote is distributed generously among all anti-Hindu parties, Christians and Muslims, wherever they have a strong presence, do not vote for the BJP or for any party which they believe is even minimally Hindu in intent. The electoral conduct of the Muslim voter when he is weak and when he is strong is not the same. Lesson Number 1 for Narendra Modi.

Now that Mamata Banerjee has announced that the Sachar Committee report will be implemented in full in W. Bengal, and Jayalalithaa has already promised the Christians in Kanyakumari that if returned to power, Tamil Nadu will be the first state-proclaimed Christian Kingdom of God on Earth, it is imperative to look at TN’s elections and results from a Hindu perspective.

The first myth which must be ruthlessly shattered is that these elections were fought on a battlefield were dharma was confronted by adharma. The Tamil Nadu elections were simply a turf war between two contending anti-Hindu parties – the DMK and AIADMK, with their fractious, factious, internecine dravidian satellites adding to the cacophony.

In 2006, when Jayalalithaa was riding the crest of despotic power and all poll forecasts predicted that she would bulldoze her way to power, she did lose, and lose resoundingly, because other invisible and unfelt forces defeated her. There is no single, convincing political, sociological or psephological argument yet as to why Jayalalithaa lost the elections in 2006 despite good governance and efficient civic administration. Lesson Number 2 for Narendra Modi.

The writer however is convinced that the good old law of natural justice, which the writer calls the Flawless Logic of Karma, caught up with Jayalalithaa and she was made to pay the price for her demoniac assault upon the seers of the Kanchi matham. The tragedy of Tamil Nadu is that while the laws of karma operate inexorably against evil-doers, they operate just as inexorably against self-absorbed and unconscionable Hindus too, for failing to create a driving force to protect dharma and dharmi.

Although the DMK, the AIADMK and even the BJP refused to set a Hindu agenda for the elections in Tamil Nadu, Hindus could still have voted as Hindus. The Law of Karma could not give Hindus choices that were not commensurate with their Hindu consciousness and therefore gave the Hindus of Tamil Nadu only one choice – to choose the lesser or greater evil, the DMK or the AIADMK. Jayalalithaa’s victory was Draupadi’s defeat.

In every dharmic society two categories of people are inviolable – women and sanyasis, because they are the life-force of the two fundamental institutions that define and sustain Hindu dharma – marriage/family and Sanyasaashrama. And that is why, as an expression of the highest respect accorded to them, in Hindu homes and Hindu society, people do not touch or come physically close to women and sanyasis.

When Jayalalithaa laid her hands on Pujya Jayendra Saraswati (Periava) and Pujya Sankaravijayendra Saraswati (Bala Periava) and lodged them in prison, it was akin to Dushasana dragging menstruating Draupadi by her hair to the royal court where her robes were stripped off her. That Draupadi could not be disrobed completely and the revered Kanchi seers could not be kept endlessly in jail or dislodged from their peethams does not mean that the duraatmas did not try; it also does not exonerate the Kauravas or Jayalalithaa and her accomplices of unpardonable violation of dharma.

Rapists and abusers of women often get away with their heinous crime because of the silence of the victim and the victim’s family. Zero tolerance to abuse of women, to rape and all violation of sanctity in any society can come about only when even a solitary voice speaks loudly and repeatedly about the offence so that society is constantly reminded and sensitized to the horror of the crime and to the inevitable consequences of the crime which undermines the dharmic fibre of society as a whole.

While what follows is certain to open wounds that have not healed, and the writer pleads forgiveness from every bhakta of the Kanchi matham who agonized every minute during the ordeal, the crime against the Kanchi matham has to be detailed not only because a very large section of Hindus still does not know the horrific details of the mortal assault against the matham, but also because Hindus have to be compelled to live with the unforgivable shame and sin of having powered Jayalalithaa to her victory.

– Pujya Jayendra Saraswati Swami was tricked into going with the Tamil Nadu police for ‘questioning’ while in actual fact Pujya Periava had been arrested but not informed of it until he had been lodged in jail

– Some bhaktas of the Matham close to Jayalalithaa had prior information of the arrest

– Powerful bhaktas of the matham who called themselves Paramacharya’s bhaktas moved swiftly to silence the RSS, the Hindu Dharmacharya Sabha and important mathathipathis, powerful Hindu voices in industry and other professions and prevented them from stepping forward to put pressure on Jayalalithaa to release Pujya Periava from jail under the pretext that the matter was internal to the Kanchi matham and none except the Paramacharya’s bhaktas would deal with it as they deemed fit. As it turned out they dealt with it by doing nothing

– At least two powerful Acharyas refused bluntly to the writer’s face to involve themselves or the HDAS in the issue

– The writer and her dear friend Badri were accursed to have seen Pujya Bala Periava in the privacy of his chambers, sunk in deepest sorrow, mind-numbing and paralysing sorrow and grief as his Guru remained in prison

– The very same Paramacharya’s bhaktas led by the Param bhakta who silenced all criticism of Jayalalithaa, who refused to lift their little finger to get Pujya Periava released from prison, however went around the country influencing opinion against the seers in powerful sections of Hindu society and were also exerting enormous pressure on both Pujya Jayendra Saraswati Swami and Pujya Bala Periava to step down from the peetham

– Jayalalithaa, emboldened by the support that she received from this section of bhaktas stepped up her asuric mission against the matham

– She froze all bank accounts of the matham and the writer was witness to boys and young men being trained in the vedapathashala being sent back to their homes

– Orphanages and old age homes, shelters for destitute women run by the matham had no money and it does not require great intelligence to imagine the plight of the children, women and the aged living in these homes

– The Kalavai matham itself did not have even the requisite meager resources to feed those who came to seek Pujya Periava’s darshan after his release

– This was used as excuse by this bunch of saboteurs to attempt to relieve Pujya Periava of all control over the innumerable Trusts belonging to the matham; an attempt was even made to wrest Power of Attorney from Pujya Periava so that this group could now control the Trusts and the monies

– Jayalalithaa had a compliant judge deny Pujya Periava bail in the Madras High Court

– Even as all this was happening, the Paramacharya’s Param bhakta lost no time in packing the matham with his loyalists and sycophants in all administrative and managerial posts and positions. To a pointed question about the total take-over of the matham by the Param bhakta and his acolytes, the bhakta told the writer that he had been mandated by the Paramacharya (from his heavenly abode?) to “cleanse the matham”

– This was a well-planned and calculated coup d’etat against both seers by a section of the matham; Jayalalithaa was only the all-powerful state instrument

– This coup could have been achieved only by state power, only by people who used their closeness to Jayalalithaa to remove the acharyas physically from the matham

– Jayalalithaa had some policeman administer drugs to Pujya Periava in jail and also permitted some scumbag to engage Pujya Periava in conversation. Leading questions about Pujya Periava’s role in an uninvestigated murder were posed to the seer; Pujya Periava was taunted and mocked; we all saw the video of this horrific abuse of Pujya Periava’s person aired on all news channels; as Pujya Periava, his speech slurred by the drugs injected into him, lost balance and fell over on his side, toppling to the ground, hundreds of hearts broke in anguish and shame that we could not protect him from this sacrilege

– Jayalalithaa sent hundreds of policemen in shoes and boots into the sacrosanct premises of the matham to arrest Pujya Bala Periava and to a sharp question about how policemen could enter a temple with shoes on their feet, Jayalalithaa remarked that the matham was no temple and only a burial ground (sudukaadu), a veiled reference to the fact that Pujya Paramacharya is interned in the matham

– Those were the times for Jayalalithaa-orchestrated and encouraged free-for-all. Editorials, columns and news room discussions, public meetings, interviews, were designed and crafted to malign and abuse the matham. Charges ranging from gun-running, drug trafficking and womanising were leveled by any passing individual on the street willing to sell his or her soul for a few thousand rupees

– The then incumbent Sarsanghachalak, faithfully mouthing the lines given to him by Paramacharya’s Param Bhakta, announced to a horrified country that bhaktas must not lose heart as soon they would have a new mathathipathi on the peetham.

This was the Param Bhakta’s diabolic coup de grace. It was also mission accomplished; well, almost.

After Pujya Periava was released from prison, the writer has witnessed in Kalavai, on three occasions, tears welling uncontrollably in Pujya Periava’s eyes and had to beseech His Holiness to not allow them to fall to the ground. If even one drop of Pujya Periava’s tears had fallen to the ground, as certain as night follows day, Hindus collectively would have been annihilated, and deservedly annihilated.

And that is why this needed to be told again; that is why the wound had to be opened again. Hindus of Tamil Nadu have placed the sceptre into the very hands which used the power vested in the sceptre to defile the Kanchi matham. This was not simply about the Kanchi matham; this was about a virulent anti-Hindu polity mounting its most dastardly attack yet against Hindus, Hindu society and Hindu religion. What many Hindus do not know is that the case against Pujya Periava is still pending in the courts. They have not been brought to closure and Jayalalithaa is back in Fort St. George. Jayalalithaa’s victory is Draupadi’s defeat.

Every Hindu politician who participated in the elections, every Hindu who spoke out against the DMK for its astronomical corruption and called for the DMK’s defeat, unmindful that the DMK’s defeat meant Jayalalithaa’s victory, every Hindu who voted for Jayalalithaa and every Hindu who told us that the issue of Kanchi Matham is a thing of the past, must return to the Mahabharata.

As Duryodhana remained adamant about not returning the kingdom to the Pandavas at the end of their thirteen-year exile, when war seemed inevitable and everyone had lost any hope for peace, Srikrishna went back to Indraprashtha, to the court of the Kauravas, and made a peace proposal.

Srikrishna asked Dhritrashtra to prevail upon Duryodhana to return to the Pandavas, if not their kingdom, at least five villages. This gesture, said Srikrishna, would avert certain war, war which everyone knew spelt a veritable bloodbath and certain annihilation of the Kauravas. But Duryodhana refused to part with even that much territory as could be placed on the tip of five needles and the rest is Ithihasa.

But let us for argument’s sake suppose that Duryodhana did the unimaginable; that he accepted Srikrishna’s proposal to give away five villages to the Pandavas in the interest of peace or even in the interest of self-preservation. War would have been averted, the Pandavas would have set up their kingdom in the five villages and they would all have lived happily ever after. Really?

Then what about Draupadi’s honour? Was the Mahabharata war only about Indraprastha or was it equally about Draupadi’s honour? The manner of Duryodhana and Dushasana’s death in the war was pre-determined by Bhima as vengeance for the terrible slight offered to Draupadi in the Kaurava court. The war therefore was as much about Indraprastha as it was about Draupadi’s honour.

Under these circumstances, if Srikrishna or Bhishma or even Yudhistra had suggested to Draupadi that she must put her dishonour behind her as a thing of the past and support their decision to accept the five villages as the only way to ensure peace, what do you think would have been Draupadi’s reaction? What would be your reaction?

If Duryodhana had accepted Srikrishna’s peace proposal and the Mahabharata did not assemble at Kurukshetra, Draupadi would have been defeated. Srikrishna’s peace would have been peace without justice, without dharma. The Tamil Nadu election results were no different. Hindus privileged corruption over honour and Jayalalithaa’s victory was therefore Draupadi’s defeat.

Every Hindu who made this possible actively or passively has earned the wrath of the gods. The gods may even forgive all slight offered to them; they may even forgive those who demolished temples or looted temple wealth, but they do not forgive those guilty of gurudroha and those guilty of defiling the highest institution in Hindu dharma. Lesson Number 3 for Narendra Modi.

1-5. Lomas’a said :– O Munis! Utatthya, the son of Devadatta, was quite ignorant of anything of the Vedas, Japam, Âsana, Prânâyâma, Pratyâhâra (restraint of mind), Bhûtas’uddhi (purification of the elements of the body), mantra, Kîlaka (chanting of a mantra to serve as an anchor), Gâyathrî, Saucha (cleanliness, external and internal),Âchamana, Prânâgnihotra, Sandhyâ. Daily he rose in the morning and somehow rinsed his mouth and washed his teeth and bathed in the Ganges river without any mantrams (like a Sûdra).

6. That stupid fellow ate indiscriminately, did not know what to eat and what not to eat. During the mid-day he collected the fruits from the forest and used to eat them.

7. But he always spoke truth while he stayed there; never did he say any untruth. The people of that place, seeing this, named him Satyatapâ.

8-9. That Utatthya did no good or bad to anybody; he slept peacefully and blissfully; but be used to think when he would die; thus his troubles would be ended; he felt that the life of an illiterate Brâhman is a curse; his death would be a better alternative.

10. He used to think thus :– Fate has made me a fool; I do not find any other cause for it. Oh! I got the exceedingly good birth amongst men; but all this has been rendered in vain by Fate.

11. Oh! As a fair woman, if barren, a cow if giving no milk, and a tree without any fruits are all useless, so Fate has rendered my life, too, quite useless.

12. Why am I cursing Fate? This is all the fruits of my past Karma. In my previous life I never wrote a book and presented to a good Brâhmin; hence I am illiterate in this birth.

13. In my former birth I did not impart any knowledge to my favourite pupils; hence I am wicked and a cursed Brâhmin in this birth.

14. I never performed any religious asceticism in any holy place, I did not serve the saints, I never worshipped the Brâhmins with any offerings. For all these reasons I am now born of perverted intellect in the present birth.

15. Many a son of the Munis have learnt the meanings of the Vedas and the S’âstras; and I am whiling away my time thus in a quite illiterate condition by some wretched combinations of incidents.

16. I do not know how to perform Tapasyâ; what is the use, then, of my attempting to do so? I am of very bad luck, and thus my good resolve will not be crowned with success.

17. I consider Fate to be the strongest of all; Fie on one’s own prowess! For actions done with effort and hard labour are frustrated entirely by Fate.

18. Time can never be overstepped; See! Brahmâ, Visnu, Rudra, Indra, and others are all under the influence of the Great Time.

19. O Risis! Thus arguing in his mind, that Brâhmin son Utatthya stayed there in that hermitage on the bank of the holy Ganges.

20. And gradually he became thoroughly unattached to all the things and, being peaceful, passed away his time in that forest without any habitations and men, with great difficulty.

21. Thus passed away fourteen years in that forest where the Ganges was flowing. Still he did not learn how to worship the Supreme Deity, how to make Japam, nor did he learn any mantrams. Simply he lived there and whiled away his time.

22. People surrounding that place knew this much only of him that this Muni spoke truth only and hence his name was Satyavrata. This one name made him celebrated that he is Satyavrata; never did he say any untruth.

23. Once on a time, a hunter named Nisâda, exceedingly clever in hunting, came accidentally with bows and arms in his hands, while hunting a deer in that wide forest. He looked like a second God of Death (Yama) and seemed to be very cruel.

24. That savage mountaineer, drawing his bow so as to touch the ear, pierced a boar with his sharp arrows. The boar, being very much terrified, fled with enormous rapidity to the Muni Satyavrata.

25. On seeing the distressed condition of the boar trembling with fear and his body besmeared with blood, the Muni was moved with mercy.

26. While the boar, pierced with arrows and besmeared with blood, was running away in front of him, mercy took possession of the Muni, therefore the Muni began to tremble and agreeably to the human nature exclaimed “Ai” “Ai” (go to that direction), the seed mantram of the Goddess of learning with “m” left out (Aim, Aim).

27. That illiterate Brâhmin son never heard before that “Ai” was the seed mantram of the Sarasvatî Devî; nor did he come to know of it by any other means. Accidentally it came out of his mouth, and he uttered. And afterwards that Mahâtmâ seeing the boar’s distressed condition was merged in deep sorrow.

28. The boar entered trembling into the Muni’s hermitage very much distracted and being very much pained with arrows. Being unable to find any other way the boar hid himself in the dense bushes.

29. Instantly there appeared then, before the Muni, the terrible savage hunter, like a second God of Death, with string stretched to his ear, in pursuit of that boar.

30-33. On seeing the Muni Satyavrata sitting there alone and silent on the Kus’a grass seat, the hunter bowed down to him and asked “O Brâhmin! Whither has that boar gone. I know very well everything about you that you never speak untruth; therefore I am enquiring about the boar pierced by my arrows. My family members are all very hungry; and to feed them, I am come out in this hunting. This is the living, ordained by the Fate; I have got no other means of maintaining the livelihood of my family. This I speak truly to you; whether it is bad or good, I will have to maintain my family with it. O Brâhman! You are famous as Satyavrata; my family members are starving; kindly reply quickly where that boar has gone?”

34. Thus asked by the hunter, the Mahâtmâ Satyavrata was merged in an ocean of doubt; he began to argue “If I say I have not seen the boar then my vow to speak the truth will certainly be broken.

35. The boar struck with arrows has gone this way, it is true. How can I tell a lie? Again this man is hungry and is therefore asking, he will instantly kill the boar no sooner he finds him. How then can I speak truth?

36. Where speaking out the truth causes injury and the loss of lives, that truth is no truth at all; moreover, even untruth, when tempered with mercy for the welfare of others, is recognised as truth. Really speaking, whatever

leads to the welfare of all the beings in this world, that is truth; and every thing else is not truth.

37. O Jamadagni! Thus placed between the horns of a religious dilemma what shall I do now so as to meet both the ends — to save the life of the boar, to do the welfare, as well as not to speak untruth.”

38. When Satyavrata saw the boar wounded by the arrow of the hunter, he, moved with pity, uttered the seed mantra of the Goddess of Learning; and now that most auspicious Goddess, on account of his uttering Her seed mantram, was very pleased and gave him the knowledge, difficult to be attained otherwise.

39. The door of all his knowledge opened out at once, and he became at once instantly the seer, the poet like the ancient Muni Vâlmikî.

40. Then that religiously disposed, merciful Brâhman, aiming at Truth, addressed that hunter before him with bows in his arms, thus :–

41. That force which sees (as witness) never speaks; and that force which speaks, never sees. O hunter! Why are you asking me repeatedly, impelled by your own selfish desire?

42. The hunter, the killer of the animals, on hearing this was disappointed in the matter of finding out the boar and went back to his home.

43. That Brâhmin turned out a poet like Varuna and he became celebrated as Satyavrata, the speaker of truth, in all the worlds.

44. He began to recite the Satyavrata mantram duly, and, by its influence, became a Pundit, rivalled by none in this world.

45. During every festival the Brâhmans chanted his praise and the Munis used to narrate his story in detail.

The Athirudra Maha Yajna is the highest form of worship to Lord Siva. It is a very rare opportunity to participate in or witness “The Athirudra Maha Yajna” in one’s lifetime. Sri Kanchi Kama Koti Peetha Acharya said:

“The four Vedas (Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva) are the roots of our religion and foundation for Sanatan Dharma. Krishna Yajur Veda, one of the 2 Samhitas (versions) of Yajur Veda is quite significant, of which Rudram and Chamakam are a part. Rudram is the most sacred means of worshipping Lord Siva. There are four kinds of rudra parayana and homas: Rudram, Ekadasa Rudram, Maha Rudram and Athi Rudram; each has greater significance than its preceding one. ‘Athi’ means “ultimate”. Therefore, Athirudram is the highest form of worship of Lord Shiva. Athirudram is a destroyer of all sorrows and the provider of ‘Kshema’.”

Spritually charged Religious atmosphere with over 12 hours a day of ceremonies for 11 consecutive days

Spiritual discourses by scholars

Cultural programs (dance, music, children’s programs etc.)

Veda Parayana

Annadanam on all 11 days following the morning, noon and evening ceremonies

The first day of the program opens with Ganapathi and Navagraha Homams (for removal of all obstacles and the auspicious alignment of planetary forces and energies) as is traditionally done at the beginning of all great pujas, yajnas etc.

It is almost two millennia since Sanskrit went to China through Buddhist scriptures carried from India by Chinese pilgrims like Fa Xian and Xuan Zang (known in India as Huien Tsang). The language came to be called ‘Fan Wen’ in Chinese and was extensively used in ancient Chinese classics and Buddhist literature. By the advent of the medieval period in India’s history, China had become a treasurehouse of Sanskrit manuscripts. In an article in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society’, famous Indologist Max Mueller acknowledged: “Being myself convinced of the existence of old Indian MSS in China, I lost no opportunity during last five and twenty years of any friend of mine going to China to look out for these treasures, but with no result.”

After decades of unconcern, communist China seems to have all of sudden woken up to revive its ancient ties with India. After marketing Sa Dingding, who won the BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music in the Asia Pacific category in 2008 as the country’s first Sanskrit-singing pop icon at last year’s Shanghai Expo, Beijing’s Peking University has now launched an ambitious programme to train more than 60 Chinese students in Sanskrit.The avowed objective of this newfound love for Sanskrit is to create a team of researchers to translate hundreds of manuscripts that have been found in Tibet and other centres of Buddhism in China. But the political imperative of the communist regime’s need to boost its acceptance among the Buddhists, who account for 21 to 30 per cent of China’s population, cannot be missed. Especially at a time when their tallest leader, the Dalai Lama, has announced his retirement from public life. As if to underline the message, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported last week that the remains of the legendary Hiuen Tsang will now be available for public worship.